Book One: Chapter 39

New Years Day

All is quiet, on News Years Day.

In fact, all is frigging boring on News Years Day.

I awake without hangover, which must be a first, muster some scambled eggs and survey the omnipresent drizzle outside. This is a nothing day, nothing on TV, nowhere to go, nothing to do.
What a damp squib of a day.
The highlight of the first day of 2006 is cooking spaghetti bolognaise accompanied by a bottle of Cheval Blanc 1984, which has been loitering with intent in my cellar for several months. It is sacrificed after a bottle of Brane-Cantenac 1984 that makes no attempt to be drinkable. The label falls off the bottle of Cheval Blanc, rendering it anonymous, just a bottle of wine that could be a Vin de Pays from some backwater nether region. Or it could be the finest wine in the world, which makes it far psychologically easy to assess the wine without complete impartiality.

How was it? A bit crap.

Monday 2nd January

We hit the sales, an early morning start in Croydon at the Whitgift Shopping Centre, a mall with a higher percentage of chavs per acre then any other part of England and the busiest "Poundstretcher" in the world. We start off by looking for new trainers, which means that we have to enter several sports shops equipped sound-systems that would embarrass the "Ministry of Sound". You have to bellow: "Do you have a size up?" to the "assistant" (and I use that in the loosest sense of the word) who stand around with the attitude of a peeved 50 Cent.

Against the odds, we manage to buy the Adidas trainers after which we venture over towards House of Fraser that boasts the most confusing lift in the world; random pairs of letter denoting levels instead of the logical alternative numbers. Is this some psychological test? Is there a logical sequence that would free us from this retail emporium? We ascend and descend three or four times before we manage to extricate ourselves from the department store.

Finally I buy some slippers from M&S, not just any slippers, but anti-bacterial slippers, since I have received an official complaint against the malodorous scent wafting from my feet. They are far more expensive than regular slippers, I feel the department store is exploiting victims with smelly feet, labelling us as outcasts in society. Perhaps I should form a support group for those whose life is impossible to live without anti-bacterial slippers?

Tuesday 4th January

Back to work on the most downcast morning in history. That is official. Near West Norwood train station, I notice a freshly pasted advertising poster for a new Sky series called "Bones". The image looks innocent enough, a man and a woman in deep conversation together. It takes a few seconds to realise that the woman is actually holding a dismembered, festering human leg; a rotting limb that will bid me a cheery "Good morning" every day that I walk to work. How has this passed the advertising standards council? Do I really have to see such a revolting sight each day? I make a mental not to give "Bones" a miss, so to whoever at Sky's marketing department thought up this morbid poster: you have lost a potential viewer.

Wednesday 4th January

Make a mental list of resolutions:
1) Move house
2) Earn more money, more than our present subsistence living
3) Take Lily for her first KFC
4) Go to the Fat Duck (sorry Lily, no kids allowed)
5) Buy new dressing gown, so that I do resemble a homeless vagrant when I don my tatty, moth-eared ten-year old one
6) Expand my "cool dad" wardrobe
7) Reduce the number of grammatical errors and speling misstakes
8) Not contract bird-flu (this may mean postponing resolution 3)
9) Increase my knowledge of Motown, early 1970's English folk and reggae
10)Not stand to attention whenever Michael Broadbent phones.

Thursday 5th January

Spend most of the day incubating a dangerously high blood pressure thanks to my incompetent estate agent who seem to have a collective IQ of 3.5. I scream down the telephone threatening broken limbs (inspired by the Bones poster) and retribution of biblical proportions. My solicitors are clowns, only less funny; aloof and condescending whenever I disturb them from whatever is more important than me.
Great, I'm going to start 2006 with a cardiac arrest induced by the twin-headed evils of estate agent and solicitor.

Saturday 7th January

Still the skyline is bereft of hue. I feel as if I am inhabiting a black and white Tyne-Tees sitcom from the early 1960's. The only consolation is music. Music is indifferent to weather. I am presently listening to the late Dave Godin's soul collection, delving into the less well-known nether regions of Motown. In particular, there is one female solo artist with whom I have become besotted...
Jaibi.
Track 22 is her unreleased recording entitled "It Was a Nightmare", not a tale of an unravelling house move in West Norwood due to incompetent solicitors, but a tale of illicit love and profound regret, distraught Jaibi uttering her vows of marriage whilst pining for her secret lover. It is one of the greatest soul songs ever recorded; Jaibi's timbre cracked and vulnerable, usual for Motown divas. Maybe I should compile a list of 100 songs that you need to listen to, once in your life? Perhaps, when I have the time.

In the afternoon, we attend a party for the antenatal gaggle of tots who are approaching one-year old. Fifteen invitees, one-third of whom were not here 12 months ago. At one-year old they are certainly not babies anymore, but little boys and girls with their own mannerisms, skills and opinions. Lily is the smallest: her Japanese genes have seen to that, though her wispy strawberry locks attract the attention of less follically endowed babies. Some have mastered the art of walking a couple of steps, others can utter a couple of words. They crawl with wanton abandon between kitchen and living room, the bottleneck doorway causing a pile-up of tiny, flailing arms and legs, bodies crawling over each other as if they have an important meeting to attend.

So here we all stand on the other side of parenthood, our hedonistic, carefree lives a distant memory, shattered after twelve months of parenthood. But there probably was not a happier group in South London that Saturday.

Sunday 8th January

It seems daylight has been cancelled. I am going to join Hammer the tortoise, see if he has any space in his hutch for the winter.

Monday 9th January

The season kicks off with a plethora of Burgundy 2004's tastings deluging London. It's heads down this morning with 80 Pinots and Chardonnays lined-up for pillaging in Saint James' Street. The hegemony of wine-writing are in attendance, HRH Jancis, Michael Schuster, Steven Spurrier et. al. but I refrain from conversation: I am working. I need to wind down after such an intensive palate work-out, so walk back to the sounds of Nina Simone, the moodiest chanteuse to have tickled the ivories, passing the security guards lined up along Bond Street guarding empty boutiques; "Vogue" house with its flotilla of Barbarella employees vexing over which soiree to arrive fashionably late; back to the office where I stare at my scribblings somewhat daunted at the task of writing them up and turning them into a legible web-page.

Tuesday 10th January

They should rename this "Bacchus Day" for there are seemingly hundreds of Burgundy tastings aujourd'hui. I commence at the House of Saint Barbabas in Soho, which seems unchanged since Dickensian times, Oliver Twist manning the cloakroom, Mr Jaggers' office upstairs. For some inexplicable reason the windows are wide-open, leaving HRH and I freezing to death whilst attempting to assess whether that Henri Gouges' Nuits is well-balanced (or not?) Perhaps the wine-merchant is trying to recreate the conditions of a Victorian workhouse?

Onward we go! This time, down to Vintners Hall. The door is pad-locked, it does not start for an hour so I sit in Burgerking and type up some tasting notes whilst chewing on a tasteless 99p double bacon-cheeseburger. I inform HRH of my gourmandizing when the tasting finally opens and she gives me a look as if I have murdered a child. Again, there is no time to waste as I plough through more Burgundies. I speak briefly with Denis Bachelet, who blesses us with a clutch of sublime Gevrey's and take a quick photo. Upon departing, I realise that I am standing next to the recently annointed "Wine Idol", Olly Smith, less hirsute than when he won the inaugural award sponsored by Hardy's. I look for a Hardy's logo tattoo onto his arm but he has his sleeves rolled down.

On to Victoria and a third tasting which is a bit of a bun fight. Oz Clarke walks in as I leave looking as if he should have been spitting more frequently. Finally down to Battersea for the final appointment, focusing upon the wines of Domaine Jean-Noel Gagnard. Caroline L'Estimee is there, who I admit I have a slight crush on, looking like your scatty bohemian art teacher. I discuss the 2004 vintage, refrain from asking advice on my pastel drawings before absconding home, sick of the sight of Pinot Noir.

Wednesday 11th January

That poor old soak, Charles Kennedy, deposed leader of that most emolliant of political parties, the Liberal Democrats, has reluctantly fallen on his sword because of dipsomaniacal tendencies. I mention this because I actually met him at a wedding a couple of years ago. Like myself, he seemed to know few people, so I broke our social isolation by asking him to take a photo of Tomoko and I. An hour long conversation ensued, a very affable, genuine man who unlike the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, did not corner me in political debate as if it was Prime Minister's Question Time. However, I had never seen someone chain-smoke with such ferocity, as if his life depended upon reaching the butt within the nick of time, notwithstanding that he downed those pints of lager with an alacrity that would make George Best proud. And look where he ended up.

At the time, I never thought "here I am, standing next to the future PM", it has to be said. But I knew I would not meet a more congenial man mired in politics, even if he did reek of B&H.

This morning, more Burgundy tastings. I phone ahead to check the venue. I am attired in Merrell trainers, an old white t-shirt with a stain of indeterminate origin and slightly frayed jumper. I enquire about the dress-code at the "Travellers Club" and as soon as she replies "Pall Mall" I know that I am in sartorial trouble.
It's jacket & tie or no Burgundy 2004, so I rush home at lunch-time, don the Paul Smith since my regular suit has been kidnapped by one of my brothers and is probably languishing in a compost heap of clothes somewhere in Brighton, then hurry back to the wanescoated surroundings of the aforementioned establishment.

One of the pleasures of being a wine-taster is that you are afforded a chance to visit some of the grand buildings around London, steeped in history and untold stories. Stepping into the Travellers Club is like stepping into the mid-19th century. A guard checks that I am appropriately dressed upon entering (if there are any wine-writers in jumper and slacks then I will make an official complaint.) Inside is a maze of rooms and secret passages, the tasting held in a beautiful old library crammed full of 19th century tomes for the discerning Victorian explorer. There are even a couple of ancient friezes, purloined by an aristocrat and hidden away from the inquisitive eyes of the proletariate who could never have appreciated such an artefact.

I spot Anthony Rose of "The Independant" flaunting the dress-code in a jumper.
Should I make a citizen's arrest, call the guard?
But then I notice that he has a tie tucked underneath. I will let it pass a just leave him with an admonishing glare.

Afterwards it is a quick walk through St. James's Park, bid good afternoon to the heron perched on his rocky island, guarded by his infantry of moorhens and mallards; down to the Engineers' Club for another tasting. Again, there is no time to waste on pleasantries: it is heads down, pen out, ISO glasses at the ready. Caroline L'Estimee is gracing us with her presence again (I am having difficulties with my water-colour portrait, but she looks to busy with other students and leave it for another time.) I manage to taste most of the wines before the crowds arrive after work and sapped of energy I stagger home, wishing never to see another bottle of Pinot Noir again. Lo and behold, I open the door and a dozen samples obstruct the hallway, waiting to be appraised.
Give me beer.

Thursday 12th January

Another salvo of Pinot. At one tasting I encounter a man of Gallic origin who must be the most campest person in the world. Ever. His eyes cannot but help wander towards my crotch, which is most distracting when appraising the nuances of a Pommard. I make a mental note to avoid the Men's lavatory on the way out and fix my Gaydar on the tube home, since it has blown a fuse.

Friday 13th January

Lunch at the kind bequest of Christies. The banter starts admirably upon the hallowed subject of fermented grape juice, then the state of the auction market, before a post prandial deterioration into the musical merit of Mick Hucknall. I bet this is the first time it has broached in the Christies boardroom. I doubt Michael Broadbent analysed the musical worth of Stars over a 19th century Sercial and I did not catch sight of copy of "Holding Back the Years" when I interviewed him at his flat. Perhaps he hid them before I arrived?

Nothing unfortuitous happens today. Phew.

Saturday 14th January

Shopping at Sainsbury's in the morning. We have been caught hook, line and sinker by five-pound off vouchers, one per week as long as you spend five quid more than your average seven-day shopping budget (there's a catch in there somewhere.) In the afternoon, Tomoko makes Lily's birthday cake and I chauffeur Lily around South London so that she can slumber in the back. This suits everyone. Lily gets some shut-eye, I am afforded some solitude to reflect upon the big questions affecting Mankind, Tomoko can concentrate on the icing. Additionally, Lily subliminally absorbs decent music, this afternoon Morrissey and Doris Troy.

If she starts pinning boyband posters onto her bedroom wall then I am absolved from all responsibiliy.

Monday 16th January

Louis Jadot tasting. Have a brief chat to Jacques Lardiere. Nice lunch.

Wednesday 18th January

Today Lily is one-year old. Some may recollect my account of the momentous occasion twelve months ago, that stomach-churning cocktail of elation and fear. Her tardy appearance, two weeks after the due date, had inveigled me into thinking that it was a phantom pregnancy, that impending fatherhood was fictitious and it had just taken my nine months to realise. Then bang! I am suddenly holding three kilos of podgy, wrinkled bone, muscle and tendon topped with strawberry locks. One year on and she has long since turned from baby into a little girl.

That little girl has two idiotic parents singing Happy Birthday as they enter her room. Poor Lily. Her bedroom is my erstwhile office/spare room/junk yard, a boiler in the corner, a rubbish-heap of household odds and ends accummulating where she would normally play;clothes hanging around the cot-bed as there is no space for a wardrobe. But she is happy as Larry, standing up like an athletic snail in her Winnie-the-Pooh growbag, her hair in static shock after a night's sleep and a toothy smile of relief that her mum and dad did not run away and abandon her during the night.

Now, I have to admit that we have not bought anything for her birthday, not directly anyway. I mean, she is one-year old, what does she care whether we spend a fortune or not? I am certain she will appreciate our decision later in life when she is a millionaire supermodel, maintaining her parents' luxurious lifestyle, grateful that her deprived upbringing of Dickensian squalor meant that she never subscribed to vain materialism. The gift that she does receive is de facto a toy meant for another's birthday that had been subsequently cancelled. Thankfully she remains oblivious to our duplicity, but I will ensure that this paragraph is deleted by the time she can read, just in case.

During the day, I attend a marvellous tasting in South London where I meet Jean-Louis Chave for the first time. I enlighten him about the website, then realise that the original article commenced with an asinine quasi-spoonerism between Chave and "chav", featuring a photo of Vicky Pollard from Little Britain. Jean-Louis will assume I am some kind of oenotwat©. How many articles dwelling upon J-L Chave are adorned with an obese man dressed as a teenage girl in a luminous pink tracksuit? Talk about digging your own hole.

Anyway, I have interesting tastings and conversations with Gilles Barges and Clare Villars. I also meet Jean-Michel Laporte and Dr Bertrand Nicolas of Chateau La Conseillante, who dutifully inform me that they are building a new car park at their Pomerol chateau. I like to think that my brush with calamity, whereupon I marooned my rent-a-car on their boggy grass verge, spurred them into their decision but hope they do not go too far and build a multi-story over their entire vineyard.

I leave the tasting after lunch. I am standing on the platform at Southwark tube station and look up to see when the next train arrives. It's 14:02, the moment I became a dad one-year ago. How long ago does that seem? Yesterday, in a different age.

I leave work at 17.30 so that I can spend some precious birthday time with Lily. I would like to thank Southeast trains for cancelling all services out of Victoria Station and for the drivers of the number 3 and number 2 buses that went AWOL once I arrived at Brixton (whereupon I witness one member of the queue arrested by undercover police for dealing Class A.)

We have to race through birthday rituals: a quick candle in the cake, another speedy rendition of Happy Birthday (Tomoko's in Japanese of course) then off for an Indian, even though Lily herself cannot partake in the gastronomic joys of curry.

Lily is dog-tired after her exertions and collapses into a heap of sleepy baby when she arrives home. She sleeps soundly in her growbag, her first birthday over, the first of many, birthdays she will remember, but none of them the first. "Have you enjoyed your first year Lily?"
She says nothing, just snuffles her comfort blanket.
I think she has. I hope she has.

Thursday 19th January

Lunch at Enoteca Turi with the winemaker of Maccassin in Barolo (his name eludes me I cannot be bothered traipsing into the bedroom to fish out his business card.) I opt for the duck tagliatelle, absolutely delicious, but the Tuscan gastronomic delight is always accompanied by faint pangs of guilt that my wife is probably eating a slightly stale ham sandwich from Budgens, home to a limp lettuce and flavorless tomato. But they are faint pangs and the guilt soon disipates with a few more succulent mouthfuls.

Friday 20th January

This evening I attend an Off-line courtesy of David Pope, an extraordinary vertical of Ridge Montebello from 2000 back to the 1971. I used to attend more of these internet-forum organized tastings, in fact I used to organize many myself until fatherhood punctured my social life and left it with a permanent flat tyre.

It is highly pleasurable to see some old faces: Nick Alabaster, the only human-being affected by brettanomyces; David Pope whose opening speech namechecks Robert Wagner (I don't know how that relates to Ridge); Linden Wilkie, who is now medically proven to spontaneously combust if a fine wine does not cross his palate every 12-hours and a few people who know my most intimate details thanks to this very site. Tomoko has a rare night off from motherhood and as usual is the only member of the fairer sex in attendance, having left Lily home alone. She is one-year old now. She must learn the meaning of responsibility.

The food is acceptable if excessively garlicky. The wines make an engaging, impressive ensemble, a vertical that strengthens my regard for Paul Draper & Co. By the end, Linden is three or four sheets to the wind and is demanding we continue with a midnight vertical of 1940's Inglenook at some East End speakeasy, whilst Tomoko and I catch a taxi home with a driver who never knew what those pretty lights were south of the Thames.

Anyway, cheers David, who organized this stupendous vertical.

Saturday 21st January

Tonight Tomoko and I watch a film: Arlington Road with Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges. The morbid ending sends Tomoko to bed depressed and vowing never to allow me to select the movie again.

Sunday 22nd January

Like the Queen, Lily has both an official and unofficial birthday. Today she has a soiree at Tootsies in Wimbledon with her boyfriend Alasdair who was one in Novembe), plus assorted godparents and partners. We pick up Vik at Colliers Wood tube station, bump into my brother fretting around Wimbledon Village and make our way to the posh burger restaurant, which is unfortunately impossible to book. This being a Sunday, the establishment is crowded with irritable parents failing to control their marauding kids, the entrance a veritable pile-up of bespoke, titanium alloy push chairs. We are forced to stand like refugees in the freezing cold whilst a table for eight becomes available, though fortunately Lily is sporting a chic poncho and matching bobbly hat to keep her from turning into a baby-shaped ice-cube.

Lily is in good form, charming anyone within a five-metre radius, enjoying her birthday celebrations, us enjoying our burgers ne plus ultra.

Monday 23rd January

Today sees the release of the Arctic Monkeys debut album, which my music radar detects as the most important release since Oasis' "Definitely Maybe." Having delayed my Album of the Month for its impending release, I embrace all the 21st technology offers by transferring the album, whose title is far too convoluted for me to type out, onto my Mac's iTunes library, from there straight onto the iPod, so that I can write a review whilst listening to the tracks on the 18:07 from Victoria (which is cancelled to become the 18:22, which is itself delayed and turns into a cattle-train once they have squeezed passengers/victims on like anorexic sardines.) Despite serious lack of elbow-space, the review is complete by the time it deigns West Norwood with its presence.

In the evening, Tomoko and I settle down to watch superlative drama "Life On Mars", one of the few series with excellect acting courtesy of the brilliant John Sims, lashings of knowing humour, pathos and the odd interlude of surrealism.

Tuesday 24th January

Dear Mr. Sun,
I am writing with regard to your recent disappearance. Whilst winter is customarily bereft of your rays, I am convinced that you have abandoned the British Isles completely and turned this bitterly cold isle into Siberia, our workplaces turned into gulags. If you continue to foresake me, my S.A.D. will become more acute and my depression will take me to the same place as Hancock, Curtis, Cobain et al.
Now I know what it must be like to live in Manchester.
Mr. Sun, please come back.

Yours hopefully
Neal Martin

Wednesday 25th January

The giant advertisement for Sky's drama "Bones" is replaced by forthcoming Channel 4 sitcome "The IT Crowd" and I no longer had to avert my sight away from a three-metre decomposed leg on the way to work.

Sunday 29th January

Having watched some Christian Scientologists waffle on about their suspect sect on the unmissable "Heaven and Earth Show" (my middle-age substitute for Sunday School), the Martin family don their thermals to venture into the countryside. Lo and behold, the sun must have received my letter and has shown its face from behind the blanket of clouds. I spend a few minutes in the garden to photosynthesise, before we drive south and, you guessed it, end up at the llama sanctuary for the n'th time this year, their cream teas attracting us like moths to a flame. I am beginning to wonder whether the sanctuary is some kind of drying-out clinic, some kind of "Priory" for llamas. They look at me with a glazed eyes, as if they have spent their life looking at the bottom of empty whisky bottle. I demur enquiring, the receptionist is looking irritable as usual. Best let the llamas recover without prying humans.

Tuesday 31st January

Hoorah! It is the two-day Australian tasting extravaganza in the Medieval surroundings of Guildhall, a rare example of brilliant architecture that seamlessly marries the ancient, gothic crypts with the modern day construction. As usual, it is organized to perfection with three rooms of Antipodean delights, affable Ozzies and tasting tables where you can sample your way though dozen of well-chosen branded wines or iconic names without winemakers impeding your goal of sampling a quintillion Cabs Sauvs or Shiraz. I have a brief chat with Ben Glaetzer, who I notice has a very spherical cranium (it gives me an idea for a very stoopid article.) His Amon-Ra is as splendid as always and at least he is producing more than a couple of buckets nowadays.

Food. I need sustenance. At one, I meet a friend down in the crypt where delicious, carnivorous fare is on offer. Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch? I load sufficient meat on my plate to feed a class of ravenous schoolchildren and assuage my guilt my requesting too much veg: ergo there is mountain of food the size of Ayers Rock, albeit without hordes of tourists ascending its vertiginous escarpment.

Wednesday 1st February

Lily is now attending "Whippersnappers": a small group of mum 'n babes who congregate in a local hall, along with a set of toy drums. The miniature Keith Moons are unleashed and bash the hell out of their skins making an almighty seismic racket, until they flake out in mummy's arms.

Personally I think they should extend Whippersnappers to the workplace. Stressful account meeting: bypass your desk, head straight for the drums and bash it out of your system along with the financial director and human resources assistant manager.
Now you can see why I have a Management Science degree.

Meanwhile Bordeaux en primeur trip is coming together: appointments at a few tricky Pomerol chateaux booked, hotel booked, flights booked. But I feel knackered just thinking about the merry-go-round.